Plan to make your nights out safer
EFFORTS to make Runcorn and Widnes town centres a safer night-out are forging ahead according to the team tasked with dealing with issues connected to the areas’ pubs and bars.
Bill Seabury, Halton Council licensing enforcement officer, told public safety supremos that the number of night-time economy (NTE) incidents such as fights and assaults were low for the county.
He said recent initiatives include The Establishment’s move to install a £4,000 biometric finger scanning device to keep out under-18s, but which could also help to keep out troublecausers, and also a Pub Watch members-only page on Facebook to alert pub managers to issues such as problem drinkers or in one instance sales of pink ecstasy pills shaped like teddy-bears that could have been mistaken for sweets by children.
Mr Seabury said the teddybear pills stopped being found on sale soon after the alert was dispatched. However, he warned that access to drugs dogs was low with one only available every two-three months.
In terms of fights, assaults and other incidents, he said far fewer of them occur inside venues than might appear from the initial police command and control reports which tend to have received witness descriptions that use a pub or bar as a location marker when something has happened nearby rather than inside, even if it has nothing to do with the premises.
Examples he used were a fight outside The Royal on Christmas Eve in which one of the ‘lads’ involved had been in The Royal but that the incident was not related to the pub and was a domestic, and the other was a fight between two drug dealers outside Chambers with one wanting to take over the turf.
Mr Seabury said domestic quarrels could happen anywhere including ‘Marks & Spencer’.
He said that so far during 2018 there had been three incidents at Halton’s busiest nightspot The ● Royal, none of which was serious, which he said showed ‘it looks like we’re getting somewhere’.
He said the police database system known as Niche ‘isn’t the best and needs to be revamped’ to properly identify where something has taken place.
Mr Seabury added that when he checked reports for one venue, 76 incidents had been recorded in three months but that further examination revealed only six had happened at the venue itself.
During his talk, he also reiterated the licensing team’s concerns over the prevalence of fake identifications (IDs) being used by under-18s, mainly belonging to older siblings or friends but also including sophisticated imitations marketed as fancy dress or prank props sold online for £40 and which can feature holograms and markings that show up under ultraviolet light but might have some slight difference from real IDs such as being marked ‘driver’s licence’ instead of ‘driving licence’ as the real IDs are.
Several councillors raised their own issues and expressed opinions during the meeting.
Cllr Norman Plumpton-Walsh, Mersey ward and committee vice chairman, said the biometric scanning at The Establishment in Widnes could be replicated in Runcorn, adding that ‘people are noticing a change of direction in Runcorn’.
However, Cllr Sue Edge, said taking finger prints could deter customers and reduce trade.
Cllr Dave Thompson, chairman, said he had been out with licensing teams and the police and on one occasion eight police officers ended up dealing with a fight outside The Royal on High Street because it had agency staff at the time who were not equipped to deal with incident, but that these have since been replaced by permanent staff.
He also expressed support for a council-backed scheme for a biometric scanner to be installed at a Runcorn nightspot keen to have one.
Cllr John Abbott, Grange, queried the number of police officers on patrol and told how a resident had said her son’s face had been ‘kicked in’ and that when police attended they said there were only two officers on patrol in Widnes town centre that night.
Mr Seabury responded that working closely with venues had been shown to be the most effective way to improve night time safety.
Ditton councillor Shaun Osborne hailed the work of street pastors in Widnes and said he ● believed they had reduced incidents of bodily harm.
Cllr Plumpton-Walsh said this could be considered for Runcorn.
Mr Seabury said: “I think we’re moving in the right direction, we get round the venues as often as we can. We’re not always welcome as we will go out with Trading Standards or a drugs dog, or the majority of our venues phone us to ask us to walk the drugs dog through as it has an effect on people coming in.”
He added: “A lot of venues are phoning me if they’ve got issues rather than wait for me to go down.
“I get phone calls on the Monday morning from the likes of Chambers, Alchemy, The Establishment, The Imperial, they have the managers and area managers from Wetherspoon on both sides of the river to contact me.
“It’s good, the relationship is growing all the time.”
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Dave Cargill (public safety) said: “Cheshire police stats for 2017 showed a reduction in incidents at all the Halton major venues compared to 2016.
“And the report showed that our overall NTE crime figures are among the lowest in the county compared to other local authority areas.” ●